


a while lasts forever

by lisettedelapin



Category: Free!
Genre: Flashbacks, M/M, aftermath of ep10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-04
Updated: 2014-09-04
Packaged: 2018-02-16 03:48:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2254731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lisettedelapin/pseuds/lisettedelapin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It hurts when it occurs to Sousuke that this will continue happening for a while – that there will be moments when these memories rise unbidden to scratch at the surfaces of their throats, rub their chests raw.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a while lasts forever

**Author's Note:**

> oh no oh no episode 10 was no joke g o d
> 
> title from [take me home by us](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=412UiNhnOHw)!

When he looks at Rin, he can’t tell if he’s trying to hide his grimace behind a strained grin or the other way round.

“What now?” Rin asks, like the question doesn’t frighten him.

Sousuke won’t tell him he’s a terrible actor. Not when he himself is unsure of whether his quiet “thank you” is more gratitude or apology.

~

 _He has lost count of the number of inevitable moments where he wonders just what Rin might think when he looks at him. Perhaps it’s a silly idea, but he is certain that part of Rin’s light has settled in the pit of his chest. If that truly is the case, Rin surely does not see it; because if anything, Sousuke is a flyscreen heart – a rusting perforated surface that catches all of Rin’s rays in tiny, modest doses._  

 _A part of him wants to place Rin’s hand to his chest, as if to tell him:_ look,  _do you feel the weight of this sound? It’s growing heavier each day._

_He decides he will wait though. Until it is full to the brim, stretching and bright as Rin._

_He never expects to overflow when it’s already too late._

~

Their teammates never question Rin sitting next to Sousuke, but this is the first time they pave the way, making a conscious effort to move from Rin’s path as he strides towards the back of the bus.

Every now and then, Sousuke catches Rin opening his mouth, closing it; casting his gaze away like his thoughts are mistakes in an exam.  

Sousuke tells himself he’ll let it go if Rin is this unsure. They can talk later.

But ultimately,  _later_ frightens him. After all, he’s learnt that time can be just as lethal as it is healing. And granted, he might know Rin better than others, but that is no excuse to ignore the weight of Rin’s voice in favour of the faith they’ve formed in romanticised silence.

“What’s wrong?”

Rin folds one thumb over the other. “How are you?” he asks.

Sousuke wonders how he manages to make the words sound like an introduction.

 ~

 _When Rin opens his hand around Sousuke’s under the guise of a fist bump, his palm is warm enough that Sousuke imagines it might leave a mark. Rin is wide eyed as he hides a whispered “Australia” under his breath._  

_Sousuke finds himself hiding three quarters of his emotions in the diminished space between his tightening lungs._

_He gasps and the sound is so airy, he has to curl his fingers around Rin’s to remember that he is here._

_“You’re gonna change into a freestyle swimmer. The next Ian Thorpe, huh?”_

_The weight melts away from Rin’s shoulders, away from his face. It settles somewhere in the tightness of Sousuke’s grasp on his hand instead._

_“Don’t whisper it. You sound like you don’t even believe you’re going,” Sousuke tells him._

_Rin’s laugh is loud and his tears are hot and salty. And the sinking sun slowly shifts its gleam over the monkey bars and he is gone._

~

“Not too bad, actually.” Sousuke thinks he means it. His shoulder is killing; physically, he is drained but the residual jitters of their relay still cling to his nerves and have his knees bouncing as they coast along the highway.

When Rin notices him picking at the fabric of his pants, he lays his hand over Sousuke’s.

It chokes him up because he knows that Rin is intensely physical. His thoughts are often vague and only half-attainable until he can grasp them by touch; understand them as part of the mechanics of movement.

The hesitance clears from his eyes as he squeezes Sousuke’s hand. All giving but not all knowing.

Sousuke exhales. “Drained and really full all at once.”

“I’m—“ Rin looks away for a moment, before returning to Sousuke, the hard line of his frown resolute. “I’m here.”

~

_Sticking his hand over his computer speakers in an effort to muffle the wheeze of his dial up connection, he prepares to calculate by the artificial nightlight of his screen’s glow. Sydney, Australia is approximately 7,952 kilometers away from Iwatobi. This is a number too large to fit the compact world he has crafted for himself in this stretching universe._

_Luckily, Sousuke is resourceful. Sydney, Australia is a drive to Tottori airport, followed by a flight to Tokyo, succeeded by a flight to Singapore and then ending in a last leg towards Sydney Airport._

_This amounts to approximately twenty-one hours – less than a day. Sousuke has gone entire weekends without interacting with Rin in the past. When he converts distance to time, he can almost imagine Rin is simply living in another part of Japan._

_But Rin’s first letter arrives covered in stamps, days after he wrote it, and embellished with the crudely drawn clouds he describes having seen from his plane window._

_When the letters stop coming, the realisation sits sharp in Sousuke’s chest. Matsuoka Rin has probably grown accustomed to spelling his name in English. They are living on separate continents; standing on opposite ends of 7,952 kilometers._

_The Pacific Ocean sits still and constant between them._

_All Sousuke can do is swim harder; all he can do is aim to cross it._

~

Rin hauls Sousuke’s bag along with his own the entire way back to the dorms. He keeps at least two strides ahead, will not allow Sousuke to apologise, give thanks, or tug the bag back. 

He dumps the bags on their dorm room floor and when he turns to face Sousuke at the doorway; for a fraction of a second Sousuke sees his bottom lip tremble, his brows slant upwards. For a fraction of a second, Sousuke finds him wounded. 

But it passes just as fast into the ragged edges of Rin’s anger. He growls, runs a hand over his face and turns away.

It hurts when it occurs to Sousuke that this will continue happening for a while – that there will be moments when these memories rise unbidden to scratch at the surfaces of their throats, rub their chests raw.

~

_The breakdown is so clean, packaged neatly in the dark of the locker rooms. There is not a single person in sight and still, Sousuke keeps his sobs contained to strained hiccups in his shuddering chest._

_He thinks the steel of the lockers has to be cold as he slides down the surface, but he doesn’t know for certain; doesn’t know anything for certain except that going pro is a thought that will never cross his mind again._

_He breaks so clean, like the doctor’s collected voice and the pity in their eyes._

_He is fifteen years old. How many of those years have just been swept right out from under him?_  

_There is nothing left for him here. And if not here, then surely there is nothing left for him anywhere._

_He is shrivelling in his own body when he puts his head in his hands and cries._

~ 

When he cuts through the distance to where Rin is and touches his fingers to the inside of his elbow, he can’t tell if he’s trying to take the pain or share it. Rin turns again, drags Sousuke down by the neck and bumps their foreheads together.

Sousuke’s stomach clenches. “I’m sorry.“

“Don’t.”  
  
He feels Rin exhale against his lips, can trace how that tiny breath – one of so many – trembles under the weight of all the sorrow in the world.

When Rin speaks, his voice cracks. “I should’ve—“  
  
“No,  _no._ I should’ve too, I just—“

Rin gathers Sousuke to him, just barely rests his chin on his bad shoulder. “Let me ice it.”

Sousuke wonders if Rin hears him swallow. He feels the need to guard this moment, as if it is too intimate for even the leftover space of their tiny dorm. 

“Please.” Rin’s voice is so thick now. How is it that Sousuke can feel it in his own throat as well?  
  
All he can do is nod and hope that Rin understands. 

~

_He watches Rin swim that relay like it’s a matter of life and death. He pushes through the water like it is air, kicks desperately forward as if the wind is on his side. He swims with the same predatory grace that Sousuke could never forget, the most unapologetic power and unrestrained force._

_Rin swims that relay like he’s reaching for absolution with each sweep of his arms._

_And later, when he’s alone in his bed, Sousuke rolls onto his back and stares at the ceiling. He reaches out tentatively in the dark; lets his eyes adjust so he can see the outline of his hand._

_Quietly, he flexes his fingers over empty space and dares to hope._

~

Rin yanks the pillow from the top bunk, lobbing it onto the bottom one before reaching for both the bags on the floor and heaving them onto the top mattress. When he’s done, he looks pointedly at Sousuke, until Sousuke sighs and reluctantly clambers onto the bottom bunk.

Sousuke is on his side, facing the wall; so when the weight of the mattress dips as Rin climbs in and Sousuke’s eyes widen, Rin is none the wiser.

They used to have sleepovers all the time as kids.

The comfort is the same despite how much they’ve both changed. Sousuke is trying to pay his respects to the passage of time, imagining everything that they have missed of each other’s lives when, gently, Rin turns him over so they’re facing one another.

“You were on your bad shoulder,” he says, flushing lightly.

Sousuke smiles, huffs out a laugh and it's so genuine, Rin smiles back. And his heart is aching because Rin isn’t just smiling; his eyes are searching now. Sousuke has to try and breathe out his fears before he speaks.

“What are you looking at?” 

“Just you,” Rin says and when Sousuke hears his choked voice, his heart wrenches and he finds himself swallowing for Rin.  
  
“Won’t let you out this time,” Rin adds.

“Good,” is all Sousuke can manage. Still, he finds that, however hesitantly, he truly believes in the word.

He lets his tears soak Rin’s shirt when Rin draws him tightly towards his chest. Rin rests his cheek atop Sousuke’s hair, twines their fingers and tangles their legs.

By some miracle they have salvaged this. Tomorrow, Rin will go with him to his doctor’s appointment. In the next week, Sousuke might itch with the hollow ache for new drive and Rin might lay his lips to Sousuke’s wrist just to remind him of his presence.

For now, as Rin’s breathing slows under his ear, Sousuke realises that healing may not lie in Rin’s hands alone, but that it certainly could start here.

It is habit when he wonders if he is merely refracted light for Rin to follow in a slow-fading path to the door. It is new when he stretches out against Rin and tells himself that  _no, he is most certainly more than that._  The punctures in his heart are there to soak up every glowing drop he will feed it and he will not let himself bleed out.

 


End file.
